Australia’s long #socmed election

Feb15

I commented in Technology Spectator about Australia’s long, social election after Julia Gillard announced the next Federal Election will occur on September 14. This is a record length of campaign time in Australian politics, so I was asked whether it might make a difference in social media use.

Excerpt: “A common criticism of social media audiences is that they are not representative of the public and not useful to target in a political campaign.

Rintel supports this notion to an extent, in that social media is not fully representative of the wider public.

However, he said that, “big social media stories are always going to get picked up more by traditional news sources”.

In this way, social media campaigns are not confined to the web, they have a much broader reach.”

Read more at:

Cope, E. (2013, February 15). Australia’s long, social election. Technology Spectator (Online).

Sentiment?

Interestingly, this article was picked up by Sentirate, an automated attempt to analyse the sentiment analysis of various forms of text online. The article was rated “Neutral”.

Sentirate analysis of Australia’s long, social election

Related:

Rintel, S. (2013). Crisis Memes: The Importance of Templatability to Internet Culture and Freedom of Expression. Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 2(2): 253-271. DOI: 10.1386/ajpc.2.2.253_1
Rintel, S. (2011, August 15). Obama? Norway killings? London riots? You can has a meme for that… The Conversation (Online).

London 2012 Olympic Memes

Jul17

The Conversation published my article on London 2012 Olympic memes, written with the help of Andrew Harvey.

Source: Facebook.com/TheOlympicMemes

London 2012 is already seeing fierce competition for meme supremacy.

Read the full article @

Rintel, S. & Harvey, A. (2012, July 17). Meme team: Olympic fandom meets the internet. The Conversation (Online).

Related articles:

Rintel, S. (2011, August 15). Obama? Norway killings? London riots? You can has a meme for that… The Conversation (Online).

Klout Puzzles: Are undergrads more influential than Gruen panelists?

Jun28

mUmBRELLA published Sarah Ballard and my article on the puzzles of Klout, specifically why Klout seems to think that typical Australian undergraduates have as much online social influence as Gruen Transfer panelists.

The research “Are undergrads really more influential than Gruen panelists? Klout thinks so” reports the results of some simple tracking studies that Sarah conducted on the online social influence service Klout.

Online social influence is one of the hottest new marketing metrics, and new companies are springing up claiming to measure combinations of platforms, followers, and sharing. Klout claims that scores of 20 are average, so scores above that should indicate some stronger sense of influence. Sarah wanted to know whether that score of 20 was a true average. She found that Klout scores really start at 10 and that a typical Australian undergraduate on Facebook averages a score in the 40s, well above Klout’s claimed average.

Amusingly, the undergraduates tracked in the study had as much or more apparent social influence than the panelists on the popular ABC marketing and public relations program The Gruen Transfer. The article provides some explanations for these puzzling facts.

Sarah’s achievement in being published was also featured on the School of Journalism and Communication’s website.

This kind of work is part of my ongoing program of establishing highly visible engagement and impact through research-based news stories published and advertised through social media. Students who are professionally-focused gain exposure in their industry and a killer portfolio object/resume line. Students who are research-focused see themselves as knowledge creators and their research has having a life outside academia and encouragement to continue.

Read the full article @

Ballard, S. & Rintel, S. (2012, June 28). Are undergrads really more influential than Gruen panelists? Klout thinks so. mUmBRELLA (Online).

Would you ask your Facebook friends to track down a stolen car?

Jun12

I commented in the The Townsville Bulletin about a Townsville woman turning to Facebook in an attempt to track down her stolen four-wheel drive.

Flag image source: freeaussiestock.com

Excerpt: University of Queensland social media expert and strategic communications lecturer, Dr Sean Rintel, said social media posts travelled further in tight-knit communities.

“If you have a couple of hundred friends, then the reach from your friends and their friends is about 60,000,” he said.

“If your post is then posted by several of your friends, it just keeps rippling.”

Dr Rintel said personal stories and pleas for help were more likely to go viral than messages from authority figures and that more people were likely to give social networking a go to track down their own stolen vehicles.

Australians are most comfortable Liking Facebook

Mar17

I commented in the The Courier Mail about the continued dominance of Facebook versus Twitter for most Australian users.

Flag image source: freeaussiestock.com

Excerpt: Dr Rintel said Twitter often saw large spikes in new users during emergencies and disasters, with usage rapidly dropping once the event is over.

“People don’t need to do much more than ‘liking’ things … they’re more than comfortable clicking that button,” he said.

Sean Rintel

social communication technology research

Tag Archives: Australia

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